Public Engagement Fund

This fund enables individuals and organisations to use creative approaches in engaging the public with health research.

Scheme at a glance

Where your project will take place:

UK, Republic of Ireland, Low- and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia and Pacific

Level of funding:

£25,000 to £3 million

Duration of funding:

Up to 3 years

Who can apply

The Public Engagement Fund is open to individuals and organisations (commercial and not-for-profit). Your project must focus on health, although this doesn’t need to be your organisation’s main focus or core activity.

You can be working in the arts, culture, entertainment media, heritage, leisure, education, research, informal learning, social enterprise, non-profit and community sectors, or other fields.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for creative approaches to engage the public. Your project needs to support our public engagement goals, so it should do at least one of the following:

empower people by helping them to access, use, respond to, and/or participate in health research and innovation

improve health research by making it more people-centred, to better understand people’s experiences and draw on that knowledge

help people to value and think critically about science, health research, innovation and the role these play in society.

To be successful, your project must also do one of the following:

We’d like to understand how you think your proposed project is innovative, and the context in which it’s new.

develop an existing activity where you have evidence that it has been successful, either by exploring ways to make it sustainable or by scaling it up in a cost-effective manner

learn from a successful engagement activity delivered by you or others, and replicate it with a new audience, eg a different demographic or location.

We’re especially interested in work which promotes diversity and inclusion, and engages people and communities who are affected by social and economic disadvantage. This work can sit within a wider project or be its main focus. If your project addresses these issues, tell us how it does this, based on your experience and the context you are working in.

If your project takes place in a low- or middle-income country, we particularly want to see how it will strengthen the public engagement skills of the people and organisations involved in developing the project in that country.

Your proposal

In your proposal, you must include:

the main outcomes you want to achieve during the project, the outputs (activities) you’ll undertake, and any longer-term impacts you hope your project will have

the people you want to reach, and why you want to work with them

previous activities, knowledge or learning that your proposal will build on

an outline plan of how you will deliver the project

how you’ll track if your project has been successful in achieving its outcomes

People working with you

Your team should have the right expertise and skill sets to develop and deliver your proposed project.

This should include at least one subject expert, such as a researcher in a science or health-related discipline, and/or a health professional. The expert can lead the project, be a collaborator or take on an advisory role.

Financial support from other funders

You don’t need funding from another organisation to be eligible, but it may make your proposal more competitive. Such funding could show that your project is sustainable and/or that it is supported by stakeholders who are important to the success of the project.

Who can't apply

You can’t apply if your proposed project is about:

delivering health interventions with primarily therapeutic purposes

running or promoting health campaigns

providing health information

telling people what to do rather than enabling them to make their own decisions

academic research (unless it’s integral to the project’s development, eg action research, or evaluation within the project)

engagement activities that are essential to carrying out a health research project/programme in an ethical way, eg consulting with community advisory panels or communicating research findings to research participants.

Awards range from £25,000 to £3 million. Your project funding can last up to three years.

Most of the proposals we receive are for £25,000 to £100,000. If your proposal falls into this range then you must meet our criteria closely to be competitive, be clear about the change you want to achieve, and include a well-considered delivery plan.

We can only support a few grants of between £100,000 and £250,000 each year, so your proposal must aim to bring about significant change. Where possible, it should be backed by evidence, such as a pilot with positive results.

Occasionally, we make grants of over £250,000, where projects have the potential to bring about major, sustainable change. These might be capital projects, ambitious rollouts, or work that could influence the perspectives and actions of a large audience or group of participants.

Your costs should be justifiable and appropriate for your proposed activities.

Our support

Our support includes:

You can ask for staff costs if they don't already have a salary for the period of your grant. We recommend you comply with pay that is standard in your industry.

fees for other people who are essential to the proposal, such as consultants and artists

the costs of temporary replacement staff to enable a person who already has a salary to allocate time to work on the project

the costs of promoting access or increasing diversity and inclusion, eg the costs for any community partners to help deliver the project

materials and consumables

equipment

production costs, including marketing

development, including building and refurbishment

travel and subsistence relevant to the proposal

evaluation and dissemination of the work

You can ask for up to 5% of the total amount you're requesting as contingency.

We cover overheads if your organisation is:

in a low- or middle-income country within Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or East Asia and Pacific

or

a small charitable and not-for-profit organisation with an annual gross income of less than £1 million in the last financial year.

other costs which are necessary for your proposal activity, eg computing and internet access costs, access to electronic resources, facility and running costs such as utilities, furniture, waste disposal and incineration, and building maintenance.

The total overhead costs should not be more than 20% of the total direct research costs you're requesting.

How to apply for these costs

You must:

give a full breakdown of costs in your grant application (you can't ask for a percentage of the research costs)

explain why these costs are necessary for your research

include a letter from the finance director of your host organisation with your application, confirming that:

your organisation had an annual gross income of less than £1 million in the last financial year

the breakdown of costs is a true representation of the costs incurred.

Proposals for grants over £250,000 and up to £3 million

To request a grant of over £250,000, email an expression of interest to pef@wellcome.ac.uk. This email address is only for expressions of interest. We will not answer any other queries.

You must use the following structure:

your name (and job title if relevant) as primary contact

the name of your organisation

the amount you want, over what period of time

why your team is the right one to deliver the project, including the expert(s) you plan to work with (in a maximum of 200 words)

what you want to achieve, where, and how it fits with what we’re looking for (in a maximum of 400 words).

We consider these proposals throughout the year, so you can email your expression of interest to us at any time. We aim to reply to all expressions of interest within a month. If we’re interested in your proposed project, we will ask you to provide more information before we make a decision.

Terms and conditions

All projects will be subject to our grant conditions and we reserve the right to ask for an additional contract.